Ratings

Everyone knows that controversy sells. Look at what happened with UK’s Celebrity Big Brother. The show was getting poor ratings until a couple of the contestants made a racist remark towards a fellow contestant, an Indian actress. The remark received tons of media coverage, which in turn helped boost the show’s ratings.

MTV was hoping that its new show, Skins, based on a hit British show about the “true” lives of teenagers would be a huge hit. Skins, would cover controversial topics, such has promiscuity and drug abuse. When people started talking about the show and its risque content, MTV was sure it would become a hit. So it was a major disappointment when the show had to be cancelled due to extremely low ratings.

This website lists the top 20 greatest TV controversies. All 20 are interesting but #16 clearly tells you that the controversy helped with ratings. Drama and shock value draw audiences in. Even though it was unfortunate that one of the contestants of Expedition Robinson committed suicide, we learned in class that the incident caused a stir among the public which in turn drastically increased the ratings for the show. However, it must not be forgotten that controversy can act as a double-edged sword. Controversies have the potential to cause the demise of shows. Recent shows such as NBC’s The Playboy Club and ABC’s V were both cancelled due to the controversies surrounding each show.

I’ve already stated in a previous post that there has been much controversy with Beyond Scared Straight regarding the effectiveness of the various “behind bars” programs in America. I want to look at how the controversy effected the ratings for the show.

These are the ratings I found for the show. I got them from TVbytheNumbers; they had the ratings spread across 4 pages and I put them together for easier viewing. There really doesn’t seem to be a spike in the ratings. Does this mean that the controversy didn’t really effect the ratings?